TR Turkish Air Forces|News & Discussion

[Ecderha]

Even if we modernise all our F16’s to Ozgur status with Aesa radar, there will be a shortfall of plane numbers.
Remember we bought 240 F16 planes in total to start with. Then at that time we had 54 Phantom Terminators with 2.5 Mach speed and 18000m flight ceiling. That meant we had 294 fighter jets in our inventory.
Due to diminishing numbers of the fleet through the years we purchased 30 more f16s to bring numbers up to an acceptable level. Today we are left with 230 planes. There will be accidents and planes being lost. As they are getting older, it is expected to lose a certain number of these planes. We need at least 40 new planes to make up the numbers in order to keep our airforce as a viable deterrent.
F16V70 is the ideal choice. Because we already have the same make albeit slightly older versions. from logistics and training point of view it is a no brainier to go for the F16V70.
But in reality, although powered by a smaller GE-f414 engine, Gripen has got a lot more teeth than V70.
1. The new GaN based 1000 module Aesa radar is much more potent and gives Gripen a big advantage.
2. It has an excellent IRST sensor (new V70 has it too)
3. It has state of the art ramjet powered Meteor a2a missiles.
4. It is cheap.
5. it costs 4700 US dollars per hour to fly it.
6. It can land at short runways including roads.
7. It is cheaper to maintain.
We need an agreement like Atak-T129 with the Swedes where the engines are license manufactured at TEI, and the planes assembled at Tusas. 80-100 planes can be considered.

https://www.defenceiq.com/content-auto-download/5b04b95f97533d72c14ff28a

You logic will not make thing True.
Why?
"the Swedes where the engines are license manufactured at TEI, and the planes assembled at Tusas. 80-100 planes can be considered." <- this will not happened ever. Reason is usa

But lets Dream . Turkiye sign agreement today. Building assembly and training personal and test product Will take 3-4 years
After that producing fighter let say 4 per month. To reach you goal. All this even if it is a Dream is not possible or it is too late or it will hurt Turkiye platforms Hurjet and MMU.

Please people be REALISTIC. There are no any option for Turkiye to start producing any foreign Fighter.
Turkiye in this moment is at The best position. Build OWN fighter. IF usa agree Turkiye can use own f-16 assembly to update or build few fighters.
But in reality Turkiye only will try to buy some second hand fighters and ONLY if it is NEED it.

 

[Radonsider]

You logic will not make thing True.
Why?
"the Swedes where the engines are license manufactured at TEI, and the planes assembled at Tusas. 80-100 planes can be considered." <- this will not happened ever. Reason is usa

But lets Dream . Turkiye sign agreement today. Building assembly and training personal and test product Will take 3-4 years
After that producing fighter let say 4 per month. To reach you goal. All this even if it is a Dream is not possible or it is too late or it will hurt Turkiye platforms Hurjet and MMU.

Please people be REALISTIC. There are no any option for Turkiye to start producing any foreign Fighter.
Turkiye in this moment is at The best position. Build OWN fighter. IF usa agree Turkiye can use own f-16 assembly to update or build few fighters.
But in reality Turkiye only will try to buy some second hand fighters and ONLY if it is NEED it.

3-4 years? That's the best delivery date for F-16V man, Gripen (and assembly line) would at least be 6-7 years away

 

[Ecderha]

3-4 years? That's the best delivery date for F-16V man, Gripen (and assembly line) would at least be 6-7 years away

That is Why I said "Dream" with best outcome. Even that Dream at moment DO not worthy to start it

 

[Yasar_TR]

On paper yes but in reality there will be a couple of problems.

How long do you think will it take Sweden to start problems with the spare parts? Gripen also has lot of parts coming from US, France, Germany etc. Will they provide them any time we need? We need to keep happy all of the countries that provide parts to Sweden.

And the Meteor missile. Yes it is a very good missile but how much do they allow us to buy and that is if they sell us in the first place. They probably treat us as how they treat Egypt.

Gripen is a good aircraft but it will cause too much trouble for us.

Any project that involves Sweden is a high risk project in my opinion. We need to keep the cooperation as minimum as possible.

Good and valid comments and questions.
But now is the time to find out how sincere Swedes are about being our allies. We need to ask them to give us a rock solid contract that covers all those points plus at a good price. That will also show USA’s hands; If they will block production of F414 engine or not.
Gripen-E IS a better plane than F-16V70. But not as good as a Eurofighter. But it costs a lot cheaper to buy and run than both of them.
Come 2026-27, we will be panicking about plane shortages. It is our country’s air force we are talking about. A KE or drones like Akinci Bayraktar, Aksungur can not replace a fully fledged fighter plane. Besides by the time KE has supersonic fighter-like credentials, we will see end of this decade. It needs to be tested, corrected, then matured. TB2 first flew in 2014. In it’s first encounter with Russian equipment in 2016, it failed. Then in 2017 it came back and blew their socks off after being duly updated. KE has to go through similar steps to mature.
During this time we will need stop gap planes. Our administration and airforce sees this too. And asked for the purchase of 40 planes plus 79 kits. We don’t have patience to faff around and lose time with petty political games. If US is not giving us what we want, we must act soon and sort it out.
Same goes for MMU engine. We are running out of time. We can’t put all our eggs in to TR Motor/TEI solution. We have seen how RR managed to produce the Orpheus development engine in 18 months from scratch. If we can get them to start on the MMU engine then we could see our first flying MMU with a RR/Kale engine.

 

[Yasar_TR]

You logic will not make thing True.
Why?
"the Swedes where the engines are license manufactured at TEI, and the planes assembled at Tusas. 80-100 planes can be considered." <- this will not happened ever. Reason is usa

But lets Dream . Turkiye sign agreement today. Building assembly and training personal and test product Will take 3-4 years
After that producing fighter let say 4 per month. To reach you goal. All this even if it is a Dream is not possible or it is too late or it will hurt Turkiye platforms Hurjet and MMU.

Please people be REALISTIC. There are no any option for Turkiye to start producing any foreign Fighter.
Turkiye in this moment is at The best position. Build OWN fighter. IF usa agree Turkiye can use own f-16 assembly to update or build few fighters.
But in reality Turkiye only will try to buy some second hand fighters and ONLY if it is NEED it.

Yes we will need those planes. Our top brass -political and military - think we will need it. That is why they have asked USA for the V70 planes.
To set up an assembly line may take long. But like we have done with T-129, (EDH : Erken Duhul Helikopteri) a squadron or so can be quickly produced in Sweden to be delivered as initial purchase. They are not that busy at the moment.
Of course the Ideal solution is MMU being ready earlier than planned. That can happen if our government sorts out the problem of engine supply via UK. (Not SSB/Tusas and RR. But Turkish government and UK government).

 

[Afif]

Yes we will need those planes. Our top brass -political and military - think we will need it. That is why they have asked USA for the V70 planes.
To set up an assembly line may take long. But like we have done with T-129, (EDH : Erken Duhul Helikopteri) a squadron or so can be quickly produced in Sweden to be delivered as initial purchase. They are not that busy at the moment.
Of course the Ideal solution is MMU being ready earlier than planned. That can happen if our government sorts out the problem of engine supply via UK. (Not SSB/Tusas and RR. But Turkish government and UK government).

Don't you think you are being too much optimistic about mmu's early deployment. I mean it not the engine only! Lot of other aspects and their maturations are very time consuming. I mean, look how long it took for f22, f35, j20 and su57 from their first flight to become effectively operational.
For a relatively inexperienced company like tusas involved this kind of mega project, even if they can just even maintain the targeted timeline it will be an astonishing achievement.

 

[Fairon]

Good and valid comments and questions.
But now is the time to find out how sincere Swedes are about being our allies. We need to ask them to give us a rock solid contract that covers all those points plus at a good price. That will also show USA’s hands; If they will block production of F414 engine or not.
Gripen-E IS a better plane than F-16V70. But not as good as a Eurofighter. But it costs a lot cheaper to buy and run than both of them.
Come 2026-27, we will be panicking about plane shortages. It is our country’s air force we are talking about. A KE or drones like Akinci Bayraktar, Aksungur can not replace a fully fledged fighter plane. Besides by the time KE has supersonic fighter-like credentials, we will see end of this decade. It needs to be tested, corrected, then matured. TB2 first flew in 2014. In it’s first encounter with Russian equipment in 2016, it failed. Then in 2017 it came back and blew their socks off after being duly updated. KE has to go through similar steps to mature.
During this time we will need stop gap planes. Our administration and airforce sees this too. And asked for the purchase of 40 planes plus 79 kits. We don’t have patience to faff around and lose time with petty political games. If US is not giving us what we want, we must act soon and sort it out.
Same goes for MMU engine. We are running out of time. We can’t put all our eggs in to TR Motor/TEI solution. We have seen how RR managed to produce the Orpheus development engine in 18 months from scratch. If we can get them to start on the MMU engine then we could see our first flying MMU with a RR/Kale engine.

Valid points. We will need a stop gap plane. We can't trust a 5th gen plane development will meet the timelines.

Eurofighter will be expansive as a stop gap(Also has the same problem with the Gripen regarding the multinational parts) and US is really dragging their feet for the F16's.

Gripen is ideal in this perspective but there are a lot of question marks when it comes to buying from Sweden.

We can't trust the contracts so we need to get local production for the spares.

We can't trust the missile acquisition so we need to be able to install our missiles.

We could talk installing our engines in the future.

These are the couple of things that I can think of in quick thinking. We could add lots of potential problems.

And I don't think Sweden will agree with our solutions.

 

[Afif]

Valid points. We will need a stop gap plane. We can't trust a 5th gen plane development will meet the timelines.

Eurofighter will be expansive as a stop gap(Also has the same problem with the Gripen regarding the multinational parts) and US is really dragging their feet for the F16's.

Gripen is ideal in this perspective but there are a lot of question marks when it comes to buying from Sweden.

We can't trust the contracts so we need to get local production for the spares.

We can't trust the missile acquisition so we need to be able to install our missiles.

We could talk installing our engines in the future.

These are the couple of things that I can think of in quick thinking. We could add lots of potential problems.

And I don't think Sweden will agree with our solutions.

the problem with installing your missiles on gripen is, either they give you the access to the mission computer or you give up your missile to them.

 

[Fairon]

the problem with installing your missiles on gripen is, either they give you the access to the mission computer or you give up your missile to them.

Aand another one. True. We also need to be able to install our own mission computer and have an access to Gripen's own mission computer.

 

[Glass🚬]

only typhoons are realistic as a stop gap solution. The rest will sort itself out with tf-x/mmu and hurjet and the vast amount of various uavs that will enter the airforce inventory in this decade.

 

[Heartbang]

only typhoons are realistic as a stop gap solution. The rest will sort itself out with tf-x/mmu and hurjet and the vast amount of various uavs that will enter the airforce inventory in this decade.

we should also inquire for rafales imo. France has a habit of arming both sides of a conflict.

 

[Glass🚬]

we should also inquire for rafales imo. France has a habit of arming both sides of a conflict.

These are also not realistic. There is to much competition nowadays between france and turkey, on top of that it would take a few years to get them, TuAF needs something very soon and that can only be the typhoon.

The F-16 and every other platform means = headaches.

 

[Yasar_TR]

Don't you think you are being too much optimistic about mmu's early deployment. I mean it not the engine only! Lot of other aspects and their maturations are very time consuming. I mean, look how long it took for f22, f35, j20 and su57 from their first flight to become effectively operational.
For a relatively inexperienced company like tusas involved this kind of mega project, even if they can just even maintain the targeted timeline it will be an astonishing achievement.

We need to be optimistic and believe in it to succeed. The real test is Hurjet. It was exactly 5 years ago in 2017 when the program was initiated. If what we have been told comes to fruition, in 5.5 years from it’s start date, this supersonic plane will have flown.
Those planes you are mentioning, are class leaders in their own rights. Totally new technologies that had to be adapted and implemented. We already know what we are ”copying” . We are not rediscovering new technologies. BAE Systems know about plane building and stealth. Tusas has built fuselage of enough F35 planes. They have built over 300 F16 planes. So there is quite a lot of know how under our belt that we are privy to.
Once Hurjet flies, MMU team will become more confident. It will also speed up processes. Our soft belly is engine. (For the time being!)

 

[Merzifonlu]

Our soft belly is engine. (For the time being!)

Our most visible and most urgent technical problem is the engine. But technically, the engine isn't our only soft belly. There are processors/chips, which will be a serious problem in the near future.

But in fact, the most fundamental problem is the lack of institutionalization in universities. This is ultimately an ideological/theological problem for Turkiye. Because some people in the country still have the mindset of "We want technology, but we reject the scientific system of thought".

 

[Altay2071]

Neither US nor Sweden will sell us any plane. We can only buy tranche-1 eurofighter, not the newer versions. But even those we should buy if we can install our systems. That's it, no more dreaming. We should immediately begin f16 modernization. At the same time, we should find a way to install a good aesa radar to hürjet. If gökhan ramjet is ready in couple of years, we should quickly decorate 50 hürjets that were already produced by 2026 with them. Until then we should install everywhere air defence systems which are themselves very well protected. We should install along the whole coast many atmaca batteries as well. This is the only way feasible. Another point. We should stop demanding too much from Rolls Royce in terms of engine rights etc. We should offer them a lucrative deal so that we can quickly produce 100 tfx. We can in parallel develop our own stealth engine by 2035. We are not in a position to bargain or think about commercial benefits at this stage.

 

[TR_123456]

Stop dreaming guys.
We wont get any new F16's,new kits,EF's or Gripen's.
No matter what THK/TSK wants or needs,we will have to do with what we got until the MMU is ready.
Hürjet can take over some duties,upgrade all the older F16's,use air defence systems,drones,missiles etc.
We need to accept it and move on.

 

[Rodeo]

Stop dreaming guys.
We wont get any new F16's,new kits,EF's or Gripen's.
No matter what THK/TSK wants or needs,we will have to do with what we got until the MMU is ready.
Hürjet can take over some duties,upgrade all the older F16's,use air defence systems,drones,missiles etc.
We need to accept it and move on.

You're right. We have to bite the bullet and go all in indigenous. Be it good or bad, there's no alternative.

 

[Ryder]

What im curious about how the Eurofighter and Rafale stack up against each other.

I mean both were born out of the same program. But France went with Rafales because the French wanted more control and a naval version.

If the TSK did buy the Eurofighter for example.

Could it level the Rafale? Both look similar but really different in their own way.

 

[Ryder]

People need to forget about Russian and Chinese jets.

Chinese jets are unproven and rely on Russian Tech. Russian planes as much I hate to admit are trash.

It sucks because I was a big time Flanker fanboy.

The name FLANKER is enough make people fanboys of the plane.

Russian jets are not proving themselves in wars also cant be intergrated into TSK military network.

Flankers are better off in Azerbaijans hands.

Su 57 is too behind when compared to the F22 and F35.

 

[Afif]

What im curious about how the Eurofighter and Rafale stack up against each other.

I mean both were born out of the same program. But France went with Rafales because the French wanted more control and a naval version.

If the TSK did buy the Eurofighter for example.

Could it level the Rafale? Both look similar but really different in their own way.

I think I got something solid for! More than just an opinion. Swiss defence ministry evaluation and assessment from the tender.